Contrary To Appearances

I have now seen "Meet the Colors" four times.  I am consoled by the knowledge that tomorrow, we will be watching "Meet the Letters".  At least there will be 26 of those rather than eight.  We also went out to the lake behind their house to feed the ducks, but the ducks kept running away so we went to the park instead.  I don't think anyone wins points for that.

Where is January going?  New Year's Day was two weeks ago already.  School will start Tuesday.  And I need more tea.

I promised you a progress assessment on my Resolutions, and I'm waiting for the base coat on my nails to dry, so here goes:


1) Work out and finish J’s teddy bear 
To be honest, I haven't even touched this one yet.  I'm still turning over ideas in my head, since the last plan didn't work.  So I guess I can call it "in progress" since I'm "working it out"?

2) Get at least halfway through cousin’s blanket
This is done, and I haven't gotten any farther.  I need to work on some other things since this won't be needed until May.  But here, look at how pretty it is:

Remember the striping is random, so the patterns you see were not planned that way.

3) Purchase and complete birthday gifts for both my brothers 
This is coming along now.  I'm partway through the first one, which is that hat from the previous post.  I'll be posting about it in more detail, with a pattern link and review, later.  Also bought felt and another skein of yarn for the other gift, so we're actually progressing here.

4) Dye angora 
I don't know if I want to call this one done because it's not.  We gave it a first shot and it didn't turn out like I wanted, so I'm trying again.  It's on the stove now in a pot of hot dyebath, and I'll check on it later to see how the color turns out.

5) Reorganize bookcase 
The bookcase is still mocking me.  Has not been touched.  I don't think I'll get to this.

6) Purge school stuff from last semester and organize for spring 
Not done yet either, although I'm hunting down the books.  I only need one for each class, which is such a blessing.

7) Plan Ravellenic Games projects and begin “training”
Even though I should have been doing something else, I redyed yarn and started to swatch for my socks:

I might also be doing a dye/spin/knit event, so that will have to be planned as well.  I'm thinking fractal spinning this time!

*8) Read Scarlet Moon and Snow in Summer
Done, astonishingly.  I read the entirety of the latter book while Little Kid was napping, and I don't remember when I finished the first.  I have to find something else to read now.

*9) Get through the first four weeks of C25K 
Progressing somewhat.  I'll be going out for my first run of Week 2 once I finish this post.  If I don't get behind, I should finish this one by the end of the month.

So that's actually pretty good.  For the rest of this month, I need to get working on J's teddy bear, organizing the bookcase, and preparing for school.  That's not too bad.  I'm actually seeing progress!